How to Rip Blu-ray on Mac with 4 Useful Ways [2023]

By Karen Nelson
06/03/2023

BD-DVD Ripper

If you are a Mac user, you easily find that Macs are not equipped with an internal drive anymore. That’s not good news if you have collected some wonderful Blu-ray movie discs, because you always have to prepare an external drive, which can be troublesome. Worse yet, you cannot enjoy the content when you are not at home or with your Mac by your side. So, a method is worth trying: ripping Blu-ray on Mac and saving the digital movie files to watch them easily on any device.

Luckily, Blu-ray ripping is not a difficult task when you have well prepared and get on the right way to process it. Hence, this blog will mainly focus on guiding you through the detailed steps to rip Blu-ray to Mac without hassle. Just keep reading now!

Is It Legal to Rip Blu-ray?

Referring to the legitimacy of Blu-ray ripping, it mainly depends on the local regulations. For example, in US and UK regions, ripping Blu-ray discs would be considered as illegal behavior, even if you have paid for them. However, later the governments also claimed that it is possible for people to rip Blu-ray discs for personal usage. That means, if you rip the Blu-rays for more convenient playback or preservation by yourself, but not using them for commercial or other usages that would cause the loss of the content creators, it is absolutely legal.

In a word, it’s not a big deal if you just rip Blu-ray for your own enjoyment. Now, let’s see what you need to prepare before ripping Blu-ray to Mac:

Tools You'll Need to Rip Blu-ray on Mac

Let's get started to see what are some required tools for you and also the detailed process to process Blu-ray ripping via your Mac:

Your Mac computer with a network connection and sufficient storage space, usually 30GB and above;
A Blu-ray hard drive: Apple has never officially provided Mac with a disc drive that supports Blu-rays. So, even if your Mac has had an internal or external drive, you need to check if it supports Blu-ray playback, or you need to buy a new one;
A reliable Blu-ray ripper: This is a must to successfully rip Blu-ray to Mac, and thus you need to choose a useful one.

This post will focus on Mac Blu-ray ripper, and introduce 4 powerful Blu-ray ripping tools to you. You can select the one that suits you most.

Way 1. Use Professional Mac Blu-ray Ripper (Best Method)

The first and also the best Blu-ray ripping software for Mac we’d like to recommend is VideoByte BD-DVD Ripper. It is well compatible with all types of Blu-ray ripping like converting Blu-ray discs or ISO files, and able to handle various Blu-ray encryption methods. What’s more, its lossless ripping feature gives you original Blu-ray watching & listening quality, with 1:1 ratio video output. Better still, the whole Blu-ray ripping procedure with VideoByte only requires a few clicks, and you just need to follow the simple guide to complete the task.

Besides, to perfectly meet your needs, VideoByte BD-DVD Ripper allows you to edit the output profile freely. Apart from simply choosing an output format, you can adjust parameters like video/audio encoder, frame rate, bitrate, etc. to make the ripped Blu-ray movie match your Mac. By the way, DVD discs enjoy the same functions mentioned above with VideoByte BD-DVD Ripper. You can briefly view its highlights below:

VideoByte BD-DVD Ripper:

Available to rip Blu-ray/DVD discs of all types;
Boost the ripping process to be 6X faster;
300+ mainstream video/audio output formats;
Output videos/audios without quality loss;
Preserve all subtitles and audio tracks;

Supported OS:

Windows 10/8/7/Vista/XP (SP2 or later); Mac OS X 10.7 or above

Now, let’s see how to use this professional tool to Rip Blu-ray on Mac.

Step-by-step Guide to Rip Blu-ray to Mac

STEP 1. Firstly, you are required to connect the external Blu-ray hard drive to your Mac and insert the Blu-ray disc. Then, launch VideoByte BD-DVD Ripper and select "Load Blu-ray" > "Load Blu-ray Disc" to import the Blu-ray media to the software.

STEP 2. When the Blu-ray content is loaded, tap the "Full Movie List" to select the movie titles you desire to rip on Mac.

STEP 3. Now, go to the upper-right "Rip All to" drop-down menu and select the output format for ripping the Blu-ray disc. VideoByte BD-DVD Ripper has provided 300+ different format and resolution options for users to select as they need.

Tip: In terms of compatibility, MOV and MP4 are good choices for Mac. MKV is also recommended for it saves most Blu-ray contents. And if you want to edit the profile like adjusting the video/audio encoder, you can click the gear icon on the right side of each output format option.

STEP 4. Process the Blu-ray ripping on Mac simply by tapping the "Rip All" icon. Then you just need to wait for the ripping completed patiently! It will finish within minutes.

(Optional) STEP 5. Once you get the ripped video files but consider it has large size that takes up much of your Mac storage, you are able to navigate to "Toolbox" and use the video compressor to lower the video size. VideoByte BD-DVD Ripper will keep well balance on quality and file size smartly, so you are able to get the files outputted in the best status without hassle!

Way 2. Rip Blu-ray on Mac with HandBrake

VideoByte BD-DVD Ripper is a professional Blu-ray ripper for Mac, so you need to pay for its full functions. If you consider an alternative to rip Blu-ray on Mac, Handbrake can be another good choice for you. Handbrake provides free functionality to process Blu-ray ripping. Meanwhile, it offers more parameter settings for customizing the Blu-ray outputs based on different requirements.

However, the drawbacks of Handbrake should be its long ripping process, and it is not compatible with commercial or other types of encrypted Blu-ray discs. Worse yet, it’s hard to recognize the external drive, which is a great weakness for Mac. To deal with it, you have to download and launch VLC at least once to enable HandBrake to read your Blu-ray discs inserted in your external drive. Hence, if you simply need to process the free Blu-ray ripping without paying a penny, Handbrake is still recommended.

STEP 1. Doanload HandBrake and VLC media player. Before you use HandBrake to rip Blu-ray to Mac, just launch VLC first.

STEP 2. After you’ve opened VLC, you can just close it or leave it alone, and launch HandBrake. Then, choose your Blu-ray disc as the source.

Note: To ensure the normal performance, you also need to install .NET 6.0 Desktop Runtime for your Mac.

STEP 3. When HandBrake loads your Blu-ray successfully, you can adjust the output settings. You can check the column one by one and tune the parameters according to your needs.

STEP 4. When you finish the settings, click “Start” to begin ripping Blu-ray to Mac. After it’s done, you can find the output Blu-ray movie file in the folder you’ve set.

More detailed about ripping Blu-ray with HandBrake: How to Rip Blu-ray with Handbrake [Step-by-step Guide]

Way 3. Rip Blu-ray to Mac with MakeMKV

We’ve told you that HandBrake is freeware yet it can hardly handle encrypted Blu-ray discs. So, if you want to rip protected Blu-ray with another free tool, MakeMKV is also worth trying. MakeMKV is designed to rip protected Blu-ray/DVD to MKV. With this tool, you can easily rip Blu-ray to Mac without quality loss, because MKV is the format that preserves most Blu-ray content.

However, you may notice that MakeMKV only supports MKV output. Therefore, you have no other choices, and some of your devices may not be compatible with MKV, which means you cannot transfer the Blu-rays to those devices to watch. And as MKV keeps the original data of Blu-ray discs to ensure the output quality, the output file can be really large that will occupy much Mac space. So, make sure your Mac has enough space to save the output video. Then, let’s see the simple guide on ripping Blu-ray on Mac with MakeMKV:

STEP 1. Download and launch MakeMKV on Mac, and insert your Blu-ray disc into the drive.

STEP 2. MakeMKV will load your Blu-ray disc for a while. Then, you will see a list of your Blu-ray movie content. Just select whichever part you want to rip.

STEP 3. Every title offers a drop-down arrow, and you can click it and choose the subtitle tracks you want to rip with. Then, just click “Make MKV” to start ripping. After it ends, you will find the file appears in the destination folder you select.

Way 4. Rip Blu-ray on Mac with VLC

You may still remember that we mentioned VLC media player in Way 2 when we are introducing HandBrake. Actually, apart from helping HandBrake rip Blu-ray to Mac, VLC itself can handle Blu-ray ripping tasks on Mac for free, too. What’s more, after you rip Blu-ray with VLC, you can directly play it with VLC smoothly, as VLC is mainly great media player software.

But it still has some shortcomings. Although it can deal with some Blu-ray encryption methods, you have to add some plugins to proceed with the ripping procedure. Even if you’ve done this part, the plugins cannot handle some new encryption either, and few customization settings are provided in VLC. In all, the whole process can be much more complex compared to the above 3 methods, and the output quality cannot be ensured. If you don’t mind what we’ve shared with you, just keep reading the steps:

STEP 1. Download and install VLC media player. Then, prepare keys database and AACS dynamic library to enable VLC to rip protected Blu-rays.

STEP 2. Download a supported Java JRE (JDK is NOT needed) and extract it into a 'java' folder in the VLC directory first. Then, install libaacs libraries and copy it into VLC directory root folder (the file 'aacs_info.exe' is not required).

Then, download keys databse and unzip the keydb.cfg file which are needed for Blu-ray playback. You can find FindVUK - Synchronize.bat that can be seen as the simple version keydb.cfg file. As you are using Mac, please put the file in ~/Library/Preferences/aacs/. If you cannot find the folder, just create a new one.

STEP 3. AACS Dynamic Library is also needed. Download it on your Mac and move it to /usr/local/lib/ directory. Also create a new one if you don’t find it.

STEP 4. Now it’s time to rip Blu-ray on Mac with VLC. Insert your Blu-ray disc and open VLC, and click Media > Convert / Save... option.

Then, choose the Disc column, and select Blu-ray. Select the Blu-ray you want to rip, and click the Convert / Save button to begin ripping Blu-ray with VLC to Mac.

To rip Blu-ray on Mac, once by following each guide introduced above, you can successfully get your Blu-ray movie saved as digital format on your Mac. Though HandBrake, MakeMKV and VLC are free to use, they all have some setbacks that will influence your Blu-ray playback experience. Therefore, as VideoByte BD-DVD Ripper is able to ensure the best quality to rip Blu-ray for you, don't leave it behind when you get such demands. Now, just have a try!